Sen. Dick Durbin D-Ill., said in a statement, “I am proud to have her as my Illinois colleague and prouder still that she will make history by being the first U.S. Senator to have a baby while in office. I couldn’t be happier for her.”

Duckworth and her husband, Bryan Bowlsbey, tried various fertilization methods over the years before their first child, Abigail O’kalani Bowlsbey, was conceived through a form of in vitro fertilization.

Abigail was born in 2014, when Duckworth was 47 and a member of the House.

Duckworth is a retired lieutenant colonel who served 23 years in the Illinois Army National Guard. She lost her legs and shattered her right arm when her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004.